Author: Alan N. Shapiro

  • A Critique of the Idea of Neutral Language, by Marc Silver

    In Arguing the Case, Marc Silver shifts the ground in original ways. He is not content to “deconstruct” the discourse founding the disciplines he studies – political, legal, scientific, literary, and psychoanalytic. He reveals the rhetorical, logical and philosophical rules as well as the paradoxes and aporias, which sustain the disciplines he illuminates.

  • Towards a New Computer Science: Instantiate a Much Richer Software Instance

    In this group of 5 coding projects, the core operations of the Limerick Metric will be developed. Where does the New Computer Science stand in relation to the prevailing software development paradigm of Object-Orientation (UML, C++, Java, etc.) ? The New Computer Science both respects and radicalizes Object-Orientation.

  • The Answer to the Question of Artificial Life

    Artificial Life is an emerging movement within computer science which has as its goal to make software that is more “alive” rather than mechanistic. This goal is similar to our goal. However, Artificial Life has overlooked something very important and obvious. It has overlooked that “vitality” already exists in knowledge fields and in creative arts.

  • Inscribe Philosophy into the Heart of Computer Science

    There are many individuals in the technology and cyberculture communities who are not just “engineers” or techie programmers. They are already working to bring software together with art and sociology. These people are our friends and allies. However, in their projects, they are working two or three levels removed from the core of computer science.

  • Star Trek: How the New Comes Into the World

    Most scientists, academics, and journalists who write about Star Trek claim to be fans and lovers of the various Starfleet Captains and their crews. But their customary methodologies function to deny to Star Trek its true originality as the creator of a reality-shaping science fiction that formatively influences culture, ideas, technologies, and even hard sciences.

  • Alan Sokal on French theory and Science

    Ah yes, rely on so-called “French theory” so-called authority Alan Sokal to provide you with an excuse to not read Baudrillard, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Lacan, and Virilio. That’s very bright. Ignore the intellectual contribution of an entire nation. The one that co-invented democracy.